Michael T. Miyoshi's Blog, page 27

Creativity in Our DNA

(Click the picture to watch a flower video.)

I think we all have a bit of DNA that says we need to be creative. Really. I think that we all desire to make stuff.

The desire to procreate is written in our DNA. In other words, we have a desire to have children because it is written in our DNA. It is coded in our genes. That makes sense. But even if I am the only one, I believe that there is coding in there for other types of creativity too.

I think about writers and painters and sculptors ...

My Cedarcrest Family

I am proud of and love my Cedarcrest High School family, and I want them and everybody else to know it.

If you have ever worked in a high school, or maybe even just been in a high school, you might have heard that you should avoid the staffroom. Or at least avoid the people that hang out in the staffroom. After all, it is said that the staffroom is the most negative place in a school. Or maybe in any business. But in our building, the staffroom is not a place to be avoided. To be sure, the...

12 Days of Affirmations

My sister had an interesting and wonderful idea for Christmas last year (which was just a few weeks ago). She thought we should give each other 12 days of affirmations.

In case you do not know, affirmations are statements about people telling them truths about who they are. Affirmations are different from compliments in that they need to be true. Of course, most people spot insincere compliments a mile away, but that is a completely different story.

At any rate, my mom is not one to worry ab...

Internet Snow Day

Snopocalypse 2019

We might not have any snow days this year because of lots of snow on the ground, but we might have snow days because the internet is down or the power is out. (By the way, just because I wrote about it does not mean that I was the cause of it, if it already happened to you.)

I think that everybody associated with schools relishes snow days. Well, almost everybody. Those days when snow is piled so high that cars and busses cannot get through to deliver the kids to school. Th...

My Delusions of Grandeur

It seems that everybody has delusions of grandeur. All I know is that my own delusions of grandeur are no longer what drives me.

When I first started writing, I figured I would be a best-selling author when I published my first book. Actually, I figured that agents would clamor at my doorstep to try and get me to sign with them so they could represent me to publishers who would want to print all my best-selling books. Of course, that was before I started writing in earnest. It was before w...

Doing Voiceovers

Doing voiceovers is hard. I do not know how actors do them.

I do not make videos thinking that I am going to be the next great YouTube phenomenon. (Even if I have had delusions of grandeur. Which is a completely different story.) I make videos because I want to teach to more people than just those in my classes. And because I want to have something to point at when my students ask me the same things over and over and over again. The added bonus to already having teaching videos is that I ...

Happy New Year 2021

Happy New Year! It is 2021. Time for a new beginning.

I am not sure that I do one every year, but I like to wish my readers (both real and imaginary) a happy New Year. I know that 2020 was a strange year. Stranger than any we have known. Unless of course, you remember the influenza pandemic that happened in 1918-1919. And stranger than any election year than I have ever seen.

The strangest thing about 2020 was that the pandemic was about as polarizing as the election. Which is strange in...

Everybody Needs a Green Screen

(Hint: Both pictures are links.)

If you make videos, you need a green screen. Really.

I have been making video lectures for my classes for a long time. Way before the pandemic and remote learning.

My first tries at making video lessons were because I wanted to see if flipping a classroom was a good thing. Flipping a classroom is where students watch video lectures at home and do homework at school. It makes sense in theory because the students have the teacher there to help when needed. Th...

Merry Christmas 2020

Free Religious Christmas Clipart

Merry Christmas!

I was not going to write something special for Christmas, but then I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. Again.

I love to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year. It is part of my own Christmas tradition. But the main reason I like to watch it is because of Linus van Pelt. Linus helps Charlie Brown understand the meaning of Christmas by quoting the gospel of Luke. It is the same story we read every Christmas. And we read it not because i...

Just Press Record

A funny thing happened in the studio the other day. I forgot to press record.

It might sound funny (it does to some people I know), but I record videos in my garage. They are mostly educational videos for the students in my class. I have been making them for years. And sometimes they are even helpful. At any rate, I have not really started calling the garage my studio, but I might now that I installed a green screen.

I have had fun with the green screen. I have really only made a few vide...